imo 4 cost counters are bad even with a cantrip but i do agree with Read the Bones.

More Treasure Cruise instead of Anticipate? You already have a lot of draw - at least TC actually 'draws' cards, perhaps 3x TC, +2 removal/distruption as you do have a lot of draw + discard and your GY won't exactly be empty T3-4. Removal/disruption wise.... maybe Dissolve or Negate MB.

And maybe Artificer's Epiphany over Divination if you want to run CS, because instant and discarding - meh, who cares.

Kakadu, I do love Read the Bones, but I decided to go with Sign in Blood because it was cheaper, and so many cards are being drawn, that the scrying is not as important as it is in other decks. Though, I am reconsidering.... It's just that this deck is already filled with three drops, and that makes it really awkward when playtesting. I need a diversity of cmcs and Sign in Blood is just a good 2 drop. As for Bone to Ash, I'm with chessdude13. Its just really difficult to leave four mana open for a circumstantial counter even with cantrip.

Squid1313, the issue with too many Treasure Cruises is that they are really bad with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip, which is a really good card to flip. I was actually debating with whether or not to even have any Treasure Cruises at all. And I really need the Anticipates because this deck struggles with finding what it needs, most notably, finding the Sphinx's Tutelage, so there are three Anticipates. And I agree with you that Artificer's Epiphany may be better than Divination. The discard is good for both Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip and Treasure Cruise.

Thank you all for your suggestions, and keeping this deck in top shape. Keep them coming!

I think that Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip even when flipped, is a generally weak card. For this deck, I even think it is better just as a looter. I would recommend Dig Through Time, and another Treasure Cruise, because the anti-synergy with Jace is almost good because of his synergy with Sphinx's Tutelage as a looter. Jace is definitely one of the weaker cards in this deck though and could easily come out.

I would have to disagree whenshon. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip loots, which helps find what is needed, while triggering Sphinx's Tutelage as you pointed out. But what makes flipping so good, is that mid-game, casting Languishes and other wrath effects (If the decision was made to board in Crux of Fate) does not kill him. He can still weaken foes, while resuscitating spells. It also makes all of the opponent's creature removal duds. I definitely though that Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip would be bad, but in playtesting, I find him extremely useful and very versatile. At least for now. I'll let you all know if he worsens, but I'm a fan of him currently

PLAYTESTING UPDATE--------------------

So far I've played about 7-10 matches with this deck, including black devotion, mono-red aggro, Origins Elves, and what I assumed was a Sultai control deck (god knows what that deck was trying to accomplish). I forgot exactly how many, but I have won one of them, and tied two of them. At first, things were a disaster. But I believe that things are being smoothed out at a rapid rate.

The first problem that I noticed was something unexpected and VERY problematic. The deck was absolutely cluttered with three-drops. This made turn one and sometimes turn two plays almost impossible, but also for turns 3, 4, and 5, I was limited to only playing one spell. That is... if I hit all my lands. On turn three I was faced with the same dilema over and over again, 'Should I throw out the Sphinx's Tutelage now, or put on pressure with an Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. I need to leave room open for a Hero's Downfall though... and I'll never have an opportunity for a Dark Deal, Divination, or Dictate of Kruphix...'

That was a blatant problem. So I threw in Reality Shift, Taigam's Scheming, and Sidisi's Faithful. Sidisi's Faithful was not turning out to be very good, it really does not do much, and wastes a card space. The other cards however, performed spectacularly. So greatly, that I've included them in the decklist, and cut down on suffocating three drops.

After that, I actually won a game against an Elves deck! Not just tied, or made the opponent rage-quit due to Languish-Spam, but won out, which was satisfactory. Hopefully, the deck will continue to improve, thank you everybody.

Glad you gave Sidisi's Faithful a try it is quite a stall and whilst i havent had a chance to test my mill deck yet i thought it looked nice. Glad to see reality shift found a spot. I think it is solid removal as i already stated.

How often did Taigam's Scheming allow you drop cheap treasure cruise?

Yeah, Sidisi's Faithful had some interesting plays, but the issue I had was that lots of the times it was just a removal beacon and it did not do as good of a job at blocking as I thought it would. And usually I did not bounce because I fought a lot of aggro decks with creatures that had enter-the-battlefield effects. I LOVE Reality Shift though! I'm glad I tried it out.

I actually took out my Treasure Cruises. I would rather have a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip on board, and thats really what the Taigam's Scheming is for. Treasure Cruise was just a dead card in my hand until late, late game, and drawing too many too early was just too much of a risk.

Thank you for checking up on the deck!

I like Taigam's Scheming, seems to power your jace/TC engines. - also tech with transformed jace to reanimate :3! - thats if you're still thinking about playing TC. - this also allows Murderous Cut to be played?

I think if you run Epiphany and the schemes you will have no problems flipping jace - jace also puts things in the GY.

Within that line of thinking of above you could say byebye to Sign in blood and just run 4 scheming - running two seems like your deck might be a bit confused about if it wants to use the graveyard as a resource or not. - however if you're not really wanting to go down there, you'd be okay - even further down that path lies Tasigur, the Golden Fang in MB and Gurmag Angler in the SB. But this may be too heavy for jace.

As far as Reality Shift goes, you're effectively just stalling their early creatures one turn - the mill isnt anything to write home about - it can also backfire against some morphy decks. Disperse and Void Snare are the sorcery and instant options for arugably the better version of one-turn stalling as they hit flipped planeswalkers and other late game things which cost a lot of mana. Well placed, these spells can be Time Walk. Poorly placed, they can be Healing Salve but you take what you can get.

I am wondering a few things. 1. How did the Mono-red matchup go? 2. Why don't you use Monastery Siege? It seems like it is a good card as for 3 mana, you can either draw another card during your draw phase (which helps mill with Sphinx's Tutelage but it also can be used to make your opponent pay more for their cards that affect you. It seems like it could be a decent card to use

Squid1313, I did take out the Treasure Cruises. From a previous comment: "I actually took out my Treasure Cruises. I would rather have a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip on board, and thats really what the Taigam's Scheming is for. Treasure Cruise was just a dead card in my hand until late, late game, and drawing too many too early was just too much of a risk."Your suggestion of Murderous Cut is interesting... though, I really don't like mixing delve with this.

As for the Reality Shift, I do love unsummon effects like Disperse, and I think that Reality Shift is much better. For one thing, it does not let my opponent take advantage of enter-the-battlefield effects, or recursion, like Deathmist Raptor. Once something is Reality Shifted away, it is gone for good. It did get bad against my Elf and mono-red match up, I mean, killing a 2/1 or 2/2 for a 2/2 is not ideal. But against the others (ESPECIALLY against Erebos's Titan) it played well. I just need some more playtesting to be 100% sure of its relevance, and just how many copies I need.

army88strong, the Mono-red matchup went TERRIBLY. For starters, I mulliganed down to five, and was missing my fourth land drop, so by the time I Languished his threats away, I was Exquisite Firecrafted to death. As for Monastery Siege, thanks for reminding me! Someone suggested that a while back, and I though 'hey, this guy's right', but I guess I forgot! It is WORLDS better than Dictate of Kruphix, half the time I am scared to play the Dictate of Kruphix because card advantage can get better for my opponent than for me. And the graveyard filling may even permit some delve action! And the versatility of the card with its two options just sets it over the top. So, I will playtest with the Monastery Siege, and hopefully next time I will defeat the mono-red. Thanks!

Squid1313, I forgot to address your idea of adding a playset of Taigam's Scheming. I think it is a risky idea, not having a playset, but taking out the Sign in Bloods. I'm finding this deck kind of weak on card draw to begin with, and I'd be really upset to see more go. Taigam's Scheming does not draw cards, so while I would love to have a playset, I'd have to throw something else to the curb.

I love this deck. A judge helped me out and found out that the repeat triggers from same color can trigger more repeats, so either multicolor decks (which surprisingly it still worked well since more of the multicolored cards matched all 3) hit an off color or they hit a land or else you get A TON of mill. Sideboarding whelming wave for tokens and slowing down faster decks, crux and languish to do the same and reality shift to deal with occasional gods. The deck is great and can give a few tips on my build if you want

Well, the schemeings feeds Treasure Cruise so you'd sacrifice some draw for some others. And plus TC syergizes with jace (if you dont want to flip him for reasons - already have one flipped?) and dark deals and the cards which I advocated above. Anyways, Anticipate is practically the same card so id argue that your problem doesn't lie in having more schemings. Its having cards which do graveyard and some which dont.

It aint budget.

You should put some negate inside its not worth it to destroy hordelling outburst one by one

I'm not a big fan of the changes. Taigam's Scheming, Reality Shift, and Dark Deal are all card disadvantage. It's one thing to play these cards in conjunction with another card to net an advantage (Dark Deal with Sphinx's Tutelage, for example), but to run all 3 is not likely to work in one deck. The Scheming is worse than Anticipate, and the Shift is worse than Ultimate Price. If you need more 2 drops, bump up the count on those. Yes, there will be times when you run into cards that these don't answer, but you're playing a control deck- you aren't playing the threats, you're playing the answers- so you have to play the cards that hit the most common threats. And then you use your sideboard to bolster your bad match-ups.

A deck like this does not have any big swing cards (except maybe Languish), so the small gains are where you will win. Using a resource of yours to kill a resource of their's that also gives them another resource isn't a good thing. Is it sideboard worthy for Stormbreath Dragon or Erebos's Titan? possibly... but that is not a good stall method otherwise.

And I have to wonder about how and when you're playing some of the cards and in what situation. Ideally you want to cast the Tutelage or Ashiok on turn 3 on an empty board, but the only way that will happen is with 1 of the 2 Ultimate Price. But when you're asking yourself all those questions about the 3 drop spot and which should you do, the answer will always be about the board state and the other cards in your hand. Sometimes you don't get to play the Tutelage on turn 3, even when it's in your hand. Other times you just jam it and take some hits....

I'm ok with the TC coming out because they were too slow, but now you're down to 4 cards that draw, plus the deal and the dictate. At what point do you just take out the Tutelage and Dark deal and just switch to Silumgar, the Drifting Death and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, drop in a few counter spells and just play u\b control?

You bring up some good points Squid1313, that does seem like a good plan. Preventing the flipping of one Jace for another is awesome, and I do plan to shake up the numbers of Anticipate and Taigam's Scheming with some delve action, I'll try to get it going!

This is not the budget version antidouchelord, but the great thing is that you can essentially cut the price in half without changing the deck very much. And lots of the items are from Origins which is at preorder costs, so they're bloated. Boarding in the Negates is interesting, but sometimes they can be dead cards, and not really worth it sometimes. Languish does a good job at stopping them also.

Those are some good points bellz76.

I play Taigam's Scheming because not only does it hit five cards to rearrange and hit land drops and useful spells, but it fills up the graveyard so that Jace can flip early, which really puts me at advantage. It gets me what I need while helping out Jace. It's a godsend on turn two to plan out the next few turns as well as late game to stop topdecking for a while.

Dark Deal was cut down to two copies because it usually becomes a dead card in my hand that not only do I have no room to cast, but I am usually afraid to discard my carefully sculpted hand and haphazardly draw a random set. Dark Deal is usually used best for me as a pseudo-finisher.

Reality Shift is really an excellent card. This deck is so condensed with spot removal, that after a successful Languish, it's hard to bounce back. Hero's Downfall and Ultimate Price essentially do the same thing. Destroy a creature. Ultimate Price having a limitation. So, with Reality Shift, while it really is bad against some aggro-weenie matches, but great against all the others. And it completely stops a Deathmist Raptor for two mana in blue. I think that it is really a card to side out, not side in. I mean, it's a turn 2 exile whatever.

As for the three turn drop, usually I Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, almost never Sphinx's Tutelage until I put in the Reality Shift. It deals with turn two threats to leave an open board for the Tutelage, otherwise, I'm at the mercy of my opponents to punch through Ashiok and kill me. So, wasting turn three on Sphinx's Tutelage really does nothing. But now that is a possibility around a third of the time.

I absolutely agree with you on the last point, I've been doing lots of playtesting with other versions. Currently I'm running triple Artificer's Epiphany and several Monastery Siege. But, really, this is a U/B control deck that runs Sphinx's Tutelage as a finisher. Though I do need some more draw, you're correct. Thank you very much for your opinions, it's a lot to think about, obviously I've only been playing for a few days and am not 100% on all of these options, and its great to have the alternatives.

I am going to agree to an extent with bellz76. (S)he brings up some good points. For a deck based around drawing and Sphinx's Tutelage, you do seem more like a UB Control deck with mainboard Sphinx's Tutelage and some drawing ability. I think you need to stick to a certain idea and keep with in.

I have a Sultai Enchantment Mill deck around Sphinx's Tutelage that you can find here: Let Me Kruphix That For You. I could've switched things up and made more of a control based deck but decided to stick with drawing and enchantments. I still have some utility spot removal but that's mostly it. If the deck is going to be based around Sphinx's Tutelage, you are going to need to move the deck around a little bit and make it more draw based.

That's exactly correct army88strong, my version is a U/B control deck with lots of card draw based utility, and library rearranging to find what is needed and use Sphinx's Tutelage as a finisher. I did try it the other way, with lots of card draw and more mill focus, but that just did not keep up with what is in standard right now. The deck needed things that it just did not have. Spot removal, wrath, deck fixing, and such are needed to speed up this deck. And just because it looks like a U/B control deck does not detach from the fact that this deck's main goal is milling. It's a mill deck. But for mill to be anywhere close to viable in such a rapid format with aggro and abzan builds running around, I need a way to control the board state and stop threats so that I can safely and reliably pump out my Sphinx's Tutelage without dying turn 5 or 6. There is nothing wrong with trying out more card draw based decks with enchantments like yours, I love them, just like there is nothing wrong with making this deck into a U/B control deck. I'm using Sphinx's Tutelage as a finisher not because it is necessarily better than Silumgar, the Drifting Death and friends (because it's not), I'm running Sphinx's Tutelage because it is fun. I love milling just as much, if not even more than I love control. I'm not 'selling out' or anything like it, I just want to mill. And win. Because that's fun.

antidouchelord, I've made a budget version that you can pick up for just $80 here http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/standard-sphinx-mill-budget/

If you have an identical but budget version deck, you should take this off the budget hub. You'll get less irrelevant comments and need for linking (you can just link your deck's name like a card so no need for the address showing too).

I think Chasm Skulker would be badass in here as a stall in case you cannot keep the board clear. And you can always pop him for that flood of tokens if you're opponent won't.

I really enjoy mill in Standard and this looks like a fun alternative as Phenax rotates soon. +1

You are correct Pal00ka, I'll take this off of budget, though it is definitely more budget that just about all control builds that are in standard right now. And I'll figure out how to do that link, cause it sounds awesome. Chasm Skulker is a fun choice for this deck, though he gets a bit slow, and there is just not enough room for him. I've elected to run Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver for my board presence and pressure on my opponent. I'll probably try out Chasm Skulker in another build, but probably not for a couple of weeks because I am so focused on this deck. If you have nay suggestions on what to throw out to make room for the Chasm Skulker I'd love to hear it! And we do need a new mill strategy since I'll be saying goodbye to my Phenax, God of Deception mill deck, which is on this account if you ever want to check it out, thanks!